Micro-Sound Architecture

Granular synthesis is the process of taking a sound file and chopping it into tiny pieces (grains), usually between 1 to 50 milliseconds long. It's like acoustic confetti.

If you play these grains back at high speed, they blur together to create a new texture.

"Sound is touch at a distance." — Anne Carson

I use this technique to turn harsh field recordings (like a subway train screech) into lush, ambient pads.

Here is a snippet of how I route the grains in a modular environment:

// Pseudo-patch logic
Source: Field_Recording.wav
Grain_Size: 30ms -> Randomize(10ms)
Density: 50 grains/sec
Pitch: Quantize to C Minor Scale
Reverb: Mix 40%, Decay 4s